Australia

There was a photo of a snake on there, but I have blacked it out as I know there are some snake-phobic readers here and I would never want to inflict that awful feeling I get when someone posts a spider without warning on anyone else.

Sometimes these flybuys offers are pretty excellent. A few weeks ago they sent me an email offering me either $50 credit at Coles, or 10,000 flybuys points which also = $50 credit in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks. I prefer to use my flybuys credit in small chunks so I went for the points. You can redeem 2000 points for $10 off a shop and I like to save my points for weeks when the budget needs a little helping hand.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, I realised we had not spent our $70 for that week, so out into the rain we went, for an impromptu and somewhat rushed shopping trip. We only needed $36 worth of stuff, so a few items we would not normally buy ended up in the shopping basket.

I’d heard of Harvest Box before and I’d wanted to try their healthy snacks subscription box when I was working in the call centre but never got around to signing up, so when I saw these new packaged Harvest Box snack packs at Coles on special for $2 each, I thought I’d give them a try. It was a total impulse buy.

I am a sucker for cherries, so I grabbed these without a second thought and without reading the packaging.

I ate one of each item before I took the photo, which means there were 2 cherries. 7 hazelnuts and 20 yoghurt balls. This is not especially balanced in my opinion, and me personally when a product has Cherry in the title, I’d like to see a few more cherries in the mix. With that said, the yoghurt balls are very tasty and more-ish.

Strawberry Milkshake was a little better, with 4 strawberries and a mix of other berries. I didn’t count the other bits but it seemed like a much more reasonable mix with just 12 yoghurt balls.

The biggest concern I have with these is the little thing on the back of the packet that says “Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients” and nowhere could I find out more about the origin of the items I was eating. I searched the website and their Facebook page to no avail.

A lot of people may have forgotten the frozen berries and Hepatitis thing, but I have not. I would not buy these again – as tasty as they were – purely because of that tiny little writing on the back of the pack.

In fact, these were bought on a very rushed shopping trip and had I checked the label in the store, they would not have gone home with me at all. I usually check the label of any new product I buy. That discovery was very disappointing. :( I’m sure if I spend some time in the dried fruits aisle, I can find better options grown here which are more reasonably priced and if I can’t find what I am looking for, I would prefer to eat something fresh but grown in Australia.

I hope companies realise when they are not specific about what items are imported they might be losing sales. For example, my favourite salad dressing now has Made in Australia from local and imported ingredients on the label. I contacted them for more information – not wanting to have to find a replacement salad dressing – and was informed that the only imported ingredients were the extra virgin olive oil, which came from Spain, and the balsamic vinegar, which came from Italy. It would not have been very difficult to make that clear on the label.

As always, nobody paid me for my review of these items, I bought them myself with my own money, I am reporting to you my personal experience, and this is totally my own opinion which others might not agree with.

The photos for Vogue Australia were pretty disappointing in my opinion. They were at a beach that is absolutely stunning. The beach is super white, and the water is a gorgeous shade of green, and if you look at the photos they could have been any old where.

One of the local video guys filmed some footage while they were shooting and you can see the white sand and the gorgeous shade of blue water..

What a pity they failed to capture any of that, at least in the photos I have seen. Why bother going to a location at all? This could have been done in a hotel swimming pool or a studio.

I mentioned in my paperweight post that I would be heading to Berry – and I did head over, but on that occasion the cow was GONE. Everyone I was with was in complete shock. We suspect it went for a repaint and will hopefully return soonest.

During a family visit a few years ago, we went to this little shop called Global Contact in Berry. It is the kind of shop you’d recognise by the smell, which is a blend of sandalwood and patchouli and various incense scents..

You are either a person who loves that kind of shop, or you hate this kind of shop. My Mother is the only person I know who does not love a shop with incense, crystals, jewellery but I assume that there are other people who are not related to me who also may not like this kind of shop. :)

Berry is this quaint little country town with a shopping strip, all different kinds of shops. You can find everything from cuckoo clocks to sausages, from candles to teatowels, from artisan wool to artisan gelato. It is an absolutely delightful place to wander for an afternoon and window shop, but if you have some money to spend it is even more awesome.

For some reason I was drawn to this paperweight. Well, if you know me well enough you’d instantly know why I was drawn to it – because this thing marries two elements I very dearly love. Cobalt blue, and gold. You’ll note the blue is almost exactly the shade of blue which makes up the background of this blog.

It is not actually scratched. I had just cleaned it before I took these photos and I have gone back and double checked it since seeing these photos, and there are no scratches. Weird! But I do think some of the bobbles you can see here are caused by the liquid on the glass wipes I used.

Anyway, while I was cleaning this area I noticed that the top of this cupboard is stained from the whiteboard eraser which has sometimes rested on top of this cupboard. So, I decided to re-do this area and I’ll post about that another day. The photo you see below is after a *lot* of cleaning.

I’ll head over to Berry soon and take some photos and write an actual post, or even a series of them, because Berry is the perfect driving distance from Sydney for a day trip. You can also catch a train there, and the main street is a very walkable distance from the train station. Bring a tote bag in case you shop up a storm, though!

And to end this post on a weird tangent, Berry was the location for Village Vets Australia, which was a fantastic tv show on the Lifestyle Channel on Austar, and if you missed it, the episodes are sometimes on youtube for a couple of weeks, until they are taken down again..

The show was awesome for so many reasons – I learned a lot of new things about cows. They did a rumen contents transplant on a cow which was absolutely fascinating if terrifying for a germophobe. But be aware the show does contain some surgery on animals, and some very sad moments, in among the great moments of which there are also many.

I’ve been a member of PINCHme since RedPawPaw imploded back in August. PINCHme is a free sample service you can sign up for. They release samples a couple of times a month and if you are quick you can grab one. Sometimes they also have a survey which you take to see if you qualify for a sample. Here’s what I have received so far –

On average, I have been in time to get one free sample each month thus far, though I have scored two in December. Sometimes the samples are quite large – for example they sent me 3x Fairy dishwasher tablets. I really liked those and have bought them since. We usually use Finish powder and we still do, but if I run one of those tablets through once a week the dishwasher is – no joke – SQUEAKY clean. It literally squeaks. I’ve heard it! ;)

I took these Pantene samples with me to Canberra recently. I have used Pantene before and I would certainly buy it again. At the moment I am using Herbal Essences from Costco which is in a 1.2 litre bottle, but from time to time I like to switch it up and I think you get a better result if you do that..

The Bath and Body Works thingy there is to give those reading from the US an idea of the size, knowing that they might not be familiar with the size of Aussie coins. I did look for a quarter but I could not find one, sorry! ;) I know they are in this house somewhere..

I can’t wait to try this dry shampoo. I have never experienced it myself but when my Dad was in hospital in the USA they used dry shampoo which was already in a shower cap – they just put the cap on and then massaged it in. I have such fond memories of Cedel as a brand – my Grandma used their hair spray for years. Next time I am in a supermarket I am going to see if they have a regular shampoo as well, because I’d give that a try if they do.

You can join PINCHme – and give me some points for sending you their way – by clicking here – if you don’t want to give me points but still would like to join, you can visit the PINCHme website here.

The Sydney Aquarium is one of my favourite places to visit. They have a special deal where if you visit after 6pm, you pay less than usual. We paid $26 each via booking on the website but prices can change from time to time.

We arrived just at 6, and headed in to wander about. They close at 8pm and we were there for most of that time, we were probably the slowest visitors there because we don’t just rush from one thing to the next, looking at things for seconds. We spent at least 20 minutes in the underwater tunnel where the fish swim next to and above you.

Unsurprisingly there are a lot of fish and fishtanks. These are two things that always relax me.

What will surprise any visitor to the Sydney Aquarium is the amazingness of the gift shop. Seriously if there is a zombie apocalypse, this is where you want to camp out and hide from the zombies. They have everything you can think of in there at really reasonable prices. And because I’m me, I took an awful lot of photos of the gift shop to share with you..

So, what can you buy?

Books.

Phone Covers

Hats

Belts, and Drizabone Style Coats.

Ugg boots

Tote bags, Handbags, Baseball Caps

Oven Mitts

Golfing items!

Aussie Souvenirs

Enormous Pens

Regular Size Pens

Paperweights

Create Your Own Pearl Necklace (with oyster to open)

Kids T-shirts

Placemats and Coasters

Not even exactly sure what these are

Can’t remember the word for what these are called. Like a snow globe except not.

Kids rash vests

Towel Outfits

And so much more, but this post has gone on for like ever. :) Trust me, go there, you will love it. :)

No, I’m not brave enough to try it myself – but Freya Hoffmeister is currently kayaking around Australia. I have been following her blog – you should too! You can find it here – Freya’s Blog. Right now, she has not seen land in almost a week – she is crossing the Gulf of Carpenteria. She will hopefully see land again this Friday.

Only one other person has successfully kayaked around Australia. It will take approximately a year. I have to say I admire Freya greatly – I cannot imagine the courage and strength it takes to do something like this.. I find it hard to get organised for one four hour trip out on the local creek, I cannot imagine planning ahead for spending over a week on the water – sleeping on it too! ;)

I think our kayak might be ready to take the winter rest, sadly. It has been so cold here the last few days – it is snowing in the Australian alps again.. at night time it is getting down to less than 5 degrees! If the sun comes out again, we will go out for a final trip.

I’ve been meaning to write some reviews of the places we stayed – as yet I have not had the time. So while I am finding the time, I’ll post a few pics.

Cairns Novotel Oasis Hotel – Fruit Bats Galore!

This hotel had amazing trees around it and as we approached the hotel we discovered the trees are full of fruit bats. At dusk they all take to the skies. So these are not the best photos due to lack of light, sorry!